


A Void Within A Void

by ofwyvernsandwombats



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Ancient Egyptian Literature & Mythology, Conspiracy, Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofwyvernsandwombats/pseuds/ofwyvernsandwombats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos may have gone out of his league investigating houses vanishing from existence. It's clear that the true forces governing Nightvale don't want him to find out the truth, and for good reason, no one will benefit. Hood figures, the Sherrif's Secret police, and the Public Library all conspire to keep control over the citizen's knowledge, and even the radio.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I put the warning for death but there's not really death, it's weird but you'll have to see what I mean. There isn't violence but there is some level of blood for two scenes, not grotesque, but a character is wounded. This is meant to fit in canon, but not follow it. I come up with an explanation for Nightfall that may not be clear by the end, so I'll put an epilogue breaking it all down. Sorry for the format if it looks weird, not sure what happened.

Carlos collapsed before the figures, bleeding profusely  
from several mortal wounds. On his knees he desperately clutched  
at his body, his hands sliding off him, coated in blood. The  
hooded figure spoke in a grating, rasping hiss of a voice.  
“You’re wasting your time.” It crooned. Chills ran down  
Carlos’ spine as panic turned to despair and sobs wracked  
through his soon-to-be corpse.  
“Mewling quim!”* The inhuman voice spat. The hooded figure raised a hand to strike Carlos-  
“Stop!” Another voice bellowed, this one more gravelly and  
humanoid than the first, and definitely female. Carlos looked  
around now, examining his surroundings, anything to distract  
from the pain. He knelt in the center of what appeared to be a  
council chamber of royal proportions, judging by the thrones  
some 6 yards away. Several more hooded figures stood around the  
room at intervals, each in front of a column, each underneath a  
banner with a single purple eye on it, a crescent moon in place  
of a pupil. Each face was so totally shrouded that not even the  
smallest, most pitiful guess could be made as to the horrors  
￼that lay beneath and produced such horrid voices. Finally, the  
scientist dared to look upon the thrones and saw what must have  
been the leaders of the figures, most likely they were who the  
council this room was for.  
“We need him alive you fool.” The figure in the middle  
declared. “As alive as he can even be called at this point.”  
“I don’t understand. What are you? Where am I?” Carlos  
asked, too resigned to his fate to care anymore. The effort  
burned him and he coughed blood, doubling over on the smooth,  
diorite floor.  
“Do not speak out of turn you insolent mortal!” Snarled the  
rightmost figure, his arm extending with a clenched fist towards  
Carlos, who promptly screamed in pain as his wounds ignited in a  
fresh wave of pain, the cloyingly sweet stench of wine filling  
his nose. The man collapsed on his stomach, unable to move lest  
he burn again. The figure beside him growled and wrenched him up  
from the ground, with necrotic, clawed hands.  
“Dispose of our new resident, wretch.” The leftmost figure  
said. The ‘wretch’ smiled, revealing several rows of sharp yet  
rotten, yellow and black teeth. It raised a hand, and chanted in  
an unfamiliar, yet definitively ancient language. The black  
floor blazed with golden symbols, which rose and encircled  
Carlos, singeing him.  
￼ ***  
Carlos burst awake, grabbing frantically at nonexistent  
wounds. He looked to his right to check the time, only to  
remember, not only that clocks were illegal in Nightvale, but  
that they had also been confiscated last week by the Sheriff’s  
Secret Police. Unable of course to sleep, the tired scientist  
rose from bed and tried his damnedest to forget the haunting  
vision. It was the third time that month he’d had the nightmare,  
and it never changed. Every detail was always the same. The  
wounds, the figures, his imminent death, put on hold presumably  
by waking up. Carlos could not remember a time before this town  
that he had the dream, which would be suspicious to him, if he  
could remember his life before Nightvale at all.  
Deciding to prepare himself for work and hope for the best,  
Carlos rinsed his face in the bathroom, partially to wake  
himself up, partially to clean his face of sweat. He stared at  
his reflection, his tired eyes barely looking back, looking  
slightly behind him actually. He’d have to investigate that  
someday. Running his hands through his long, perfectly curly  
hair, Carlos left the bathroom to make breakfast.  
As the eggs sizzled and the coffee dripped, he turned the  
knobs on his makeshift radio, stopping when he finally got a  
signal and heard Cecil’s voice, naturally deep and relaxing,  
￼automatically trustworthy, despite reporting the most impossible  
events. Apparently, during the night, a house had simply stopped  
existing. Intrigued, Carlos decided to get dressed after all,  
putting on worn jeans and plaid underneath his slightly stained  
lab coat. Remembering his food, he ran back and took a swig or  
two of boiling hot coffee, and threw out the eggs, too burned to  
eat. Having run out of non wheat foods, Carlos went hungry into  
the nightmarish, yet strangely pleasant town, his own nightmare  
all but forgotten.  
***  
Driving his rusted, ancient, yet more than dependable pick-  
up truck, Carlos encountered about as much traffic as you could  
expect from a large small town such as Nightvale. Since no major  
lethal disasters had occurred recently, the traffic was not bad  
at all, going quite smoothly and calmly. He lived on the edge of  
downtown, the opposite side of town from the Desert Creek  
housing development where the allegedly nonexistent house was  
allegedly located.  
At last traffic caught up, and he was stuck in front of the  
forbidden Dog Park, trying not to stare at it lest the secret  
police find out. However, a blur of movement made his head  
betray him, turning to look he saw a hooded figure staring  
through the fence, draped in even more shadow then produced by  
￼such robes. It vanished as quickly as it came, darting back,  
further into its territory. The whole event unsettled him for  
two reasons, the first being that it seemed to have been staring  
at him, though he could not tell what with its hood and the  
shadows. The second was that he could tell somehow, that it had  
appeared in his dream, that that specific figure, had been  
there.  
The traffic jam ended, and Carlos pushed the incident out  
of his thoughts, instead running through a list of possibilities  
for what could be the explanation for the house.  
***  
Carlos pulled into the gated community and examined the  
neighborhood without really meaning to. He was faced with  
somewhat judgmental glares, for despite being popular within the  
main town, the older residents tended not to like his  
inquisitiveness and “New age scientific voodoo crap”, as Steve  
Carlsberg so politely put it when he whispered the phrase under  
his breath just a few days before. Carlos figured it would be  
easy to find a house that didn't exist, since it should have  
been not there. He was proved wrong when the only indicating  
feature, which took three laps through the neighborhood to  
identify, was the lack of reflection on the windows, despite the  
sun bearing down over their heads in full bloom. He parked on  
￼the curb, despite the silent shouts of frustration from the  
retirees around him.  
Taking his field bag with him, Carlos walked up the path,  
noticing that his shoes came out sandy despite the driveway  
being spotless. He brushed it off, both literally and  
figuratively and opened the door, the fact that this was  
possible making a smug grin break out on his face, since you  
could only interact with things that existed. However, when he  
reached back to close the door, his hand went right through it  
and he almost fell back. The door was still there, he could see  
every grain in it, he simply couldn't touch it. Intrigued, he  
pulled his geiger counter out, expecting some form of radiation,  
considering the town’s history. The device clicked consistently,  
yet never indicated any radiation, not even when held in the  
door itself.  
Carlos continued through the house, the clicking never  
changing pace. Half in disbelief, half just to get it over with,  
Carlos made another pass through the house, this time with an  
EMF detector, though of course he did not believe in such things  
as ghosts, just that EMF detectors were sensitive to different  
wavelengths than geiger counters. Relieved, but at the same time  
frustrated when this too failed to pick up anything, Carlos  
through down his bag and paused when he heard the sound of sand  
￼shifting. The floors were spotless, covered in terra cotta tile,  
yet he distinctly heard sand. He knelt down and ran his fingers  
along the tile, feeling the cold, solid clay, yet when he looked  
carefully, the tile faded slightly, like two images layered over  
each other, with the second being the desert sand.  
Taking a beaker from his bag, Carlos slowly but surely  
brought it down and made a scooping motion, shocked when he  
lifted it to reveal it was full of sand now. He stoppered it to  
set it aside for testing and tried now with his hands, feeling  
the grains making way for him, still seeing tile with his eyes.  
Thinking perhaps it was a hologram, Carlos wrenched up his hands  
and slammed them down again, slapping the clay loudly and  
painfully.  
Possessed now by the fever of investigation, Carlos  
repeated this process with every area of the house, reaching  
through the wall, only to punch it a few seconds later, walking  
through a cabinet, then opening the door and looking out of it,  
shading his eyes from the sun, then remembering the ceiling,  
covering himself in incandescent light once more. He could not  
yet tell if the mirage, for what else could he call it for now,  
was operated by visual perception, movement speed, or thought,  
but the implications of it were astounding. If people could  
simply believe they had a house, then turn the knob after  
￼opening their eyes. But he had to be sure. In a town like  
Nightvale, this could not be the first time something like this  
had happened, especially given the casual manner in which Cecil  
reported it this morning. He decided to go to the potentially  
deadly, yet quite reliable public library, if it still stood  
that was.  
***  
For a building that had been burned down, three times now,  
the Nightvale Public Library bore little scorch marks, in fact,  
it looked positively new, except for the boards on the windows,  
and the long, thin vines creeping up branching out like veins.  
Though dangerous, the library was still open to the people, and  
so Carlos found himself swinging open the door and strolling in  
to a building known to have claimed several lives.  
The interior was well kept, burgundy carpet with golden  
swirls reminiscent of wrought iron fences, cream colored  
wallpaper, turned slightly darker with the passage of time, and  
nearly a hundred rows of massive bookshelves, each at least  
three times Carlos’ height. There were no librarians in sight,  
so he continued, searching for the history section. He walked  
through the quiet library, the soft patter the only sound  
besides the occasional shuffle of books in the distance that  
signals the presence of librarians. No one had ever given a  
￼description of a librarian, though given the fear they inspired, Carlos could only assume they were monstrous. At last, he made it to the high nineties, which was a rather large number of rows, and probably contained fabricated histories for the layperson who did not have time for a longer trip. Carlos was prepared however, a bag of mercury fulminate** held tightly yet gently in his hand.  
He brushed his fingers along the spines, searching for the  
oldest looking book with ‘Nightvale’ in the title, surely that  
had the best chance of being accurate. Though the rolls were  
immensely tall, the history section comprised a manageable shelf  
and a side, meaning he’d need ten minutes at most to look, then  
he just needed to get out before a librarian came around. A  
whole shelf side and not a single Nightvale history to be found,  
only historical novels and civil war biographies, which was  
strange since the Southwest had not been made part of the  
country yet. The next shelf revealed no change. He was about to  
start on the third side, and had seen a book that caught his  
eye, but before he could grab it, the telltale screech of a  
librarian reverberated around the library, sounding so close,  
Carlos turned around and saw a ten foot tall only vaguely  
humanoid creature moving towards him in a strange combination of  
running and slithering.  
Ready for the encounter, Carlos drew a few pieces from his  
bag and threw them at the ground in front of the librarian,  
which screeched once more in reply. He turned and ran but the  
door was too far away to make it in time, so he looked for a  
back room he could barricade himself in until the creature  
retreated.  
Carlos found a door with strange symbols on it, that  
reminded him of something he couldn't quite place. He made a mad  
dash for the door, bursting through and collapsing against it,  
until he found a proper block. Suddenly, he realized what the  
symbols reminded him of, or rather, where they were from. The  
room he had entered had tens of the symbols from his dream on  
the walls, each glowing slightly with some form of energy. The  
room had a buzz to it, from the power of the symbols. Carlos,  
forgetting the librarian, explored the room. A desk sat in the  
center, with a map of the town on it, red pins matching roughly  
with the unusual events of recent past, especially the  
nonexistent house. He noticed other pins in neighborhoods where  
nothing lethal had happened to his knowledge. Potentially, these  
were other nonexistent houses. He took a picture of it with his  
phone for later examination.  
￼ Remembering his reason for being in this room, Carlos  
turned to check where the librarian had gone. He opened the door  
and walked carefully out. The librarian screeched behind him and  
slammed the door shut, blocking Carlos’ passage. He reached for  
his mercury fulminate, but the bag was gone, it must have fallen  
out on his run over. The librarian rose now, standing erect, and  
spoke clearly and smoothly.  
“You again” The withered voice said, ancient and guttural.  
“Wh-What?” Carlos replied, taken aback.  
“You have always been a nuisance.” The librarian said,  
stepping closer.  
“What do you mean?” Carlos asked. “I’ve never been here  
before.”  
“Ah, then you've been more of a nuisance than I thought.”  
It said. “It’s only fair I take care of you for them.”  
“For who?” Carlos asked, a lump in his throat from the threat  
he'd just received.  
“Oh don't worry. You'll meet them soon enough.” The  
creature said, smiling to reveal, rows of sharp, yellow and  
black teeth. It reached out with a clawed hand, but Carlos had  
already started running, ducking into a row and scrambling up  
the ladder. The librarian was in close pursuit, already at the  
ladder. Carlos had planned for this and threw down the books. He  
￼continued up, clambering up on top and jumping onto the ladder  
across, sliding down. Once down he pushed the bookshelf down,  
now that the weight of the librarian made it side-heavy. Carlos  
sprinted for the exit, screeches of anger and pain coming from  
behind him. He was wrenching the door open when the creature  
burst forth from the pile, cursing in the same ancient language  
the hooded figures spoke in his dream.  
Out in the mid afternoon sun, Carlos felt the rumble of  
hunger, and hurried from the library to his car. The memory of  
his lack of food had him start on the way to Ralph’s Market, but  
he was a young scientist after all, and he opted for Big Rico’s  
Pizza, calling ahead for two pizzas. The drive was a short one,  
so he had to wait about ten minutes in the restaurant, time he  
spent trying to remember something vaguely familiar about the  
symbols and the language that seemed to involve the hooded  
figures somehow. When his pizzas were ready, he payed and walked  
next door to his house.  
Carlos was by no means a hoarder, or a madman, yet anyone  
who saw his apartment would surely assume at least one of the  
two. Every surface had scientific equipment of some kind or  
other, including the chemistry set on the stove, the seismograph  
on the coffee table, an EKG next to the lamp, bunsen burners on  
the kitchen counter, and many more bizarre combinations and  
￼placements. The actual living facilities consisted of a twin bed  
pushed into the corner of the “bedroom”, a bathroom, a single  
shelf in the refrigerator, and one burner on the stove. Carlos  
didn't mind however, and actually found it homey.  
Moving some beakers and petri dishes, Carlos made space for  
the pizzas and took a plate and two slices to his couch,  
grabbing his logbook first. He perused through his records of  
incidents in the town, looking for anything similar to the house  
from the morning, pinning the locations on his map with color-  
coded pins. When he finished, he look back and saw that  
overwhelmingly, existence-related incidents occurred in larger  
numbers towards the edge of town, but in general, the events  
spiraled around the dog park.  
Carlos of course wanted to go to the dog park and figure  
out the constant, deepening mystery of it, but it was still  
hours to night and he couldn't just waltz in to the most  
forbidden place in town. In the meantime, he decided, he would  
have to warn the town and get Cecil to release his findings on  
air. He checked the time: 5:41, which gave him about twenty  
minutes before the evening broadcast. He gathered up his  
findings and drive the few blocks distance to the radio station.  
Carlos got in with little trouble, what with his relatively  
frequent updates on the strange goings-on and the always busy  
￼interns that never asked him many questions. After the two  
flights of stairs to the recording booth floor, he navigated the  
stacks of equipment and tapes. He passed the bloodstone circle  
quickly, confused and slightly disturbed by the pagan ritual and  
its ominous name. Finally, he came to the cubicle room and saw  
Cecil’s booth across from him, with Station Management to his  
left. The bustle of interns made his path a human pinball  
machine, and a swerve to avoid collision brought him almost  
falling against the slightly open door of Station Management.  
Standing in front of the doorway, he peered into the feared  
office, and saw a pair of hooded figures deep in conversation,  
both with guttural, halting voices speaking that same ancient  
language. Especially shocking was the interior, which looked  
eerily similar to the room from his dream, only an office  
instead of a council room. Suddenly, the taller figure stopped  
and turned to stare at Carlos, waving his gnarled hand and  
slamming the door from afar.  
Petrified by the encounter, Carlos was only reminded of his  
purpose here when a comforting and familiar voice brought him  
back to reality.  
“Carlos?” Cecil asked, with what Carlos was sure was a  
nervous stutter in his voice. “What are you doing here?”  
“I’ve been investigating the house in Desert Creek.”  
￼ “What about it?” Cecil responded.  
“Long story short, I think it’s connected to the Dog Park.  
You need to warn the town. Tell them it’s not enough to just  
avoid it anymore.” Carlos begged, whispering harshly as the  
hooded figures were still nearby.  
“What do you mean?” Cecil was puzzled, his charmed  
nervousness replaced with blank confusion. “What dog park? There  
isn't one.”  
“What?” Carlos replied.  
“Excuse me. I have to start the show. You- You can stay if  
you like.” Cecil said, his stutter back.  
Cecil walked away, adjusting his tan vest and rolling up  
the sleeves of his white shirt. Carlos watched him in the booth,  
mystified by the exchange. He lingered long enough to see that  
when the ‘ON AIR’ sign went on, and Cecil began speaking, his  
winding tattoos began glowing purple and his manner stuttered  
for but a moment. Carlos twisted back, a tingle on his spine  
telling him to, and saw the hooded figure again, standing in the  
doorway, its hand glowing. An intern walked past, and the figure  
was gone once more. Overwhelmed by how omnipresent and  
omnipotent the figures were, his only instinct was to run, to  
get away, to be alone so he could figure out what to do. So he  
did. He ran, he ran down the stairs, he ran to his car, he sped  
￼through the town and locked himself in his apartment, where he  
stayed until night fell.  
Carlos struggled with the revelations of the day. Somehow,  
these hooded figures controlled everything, not just the dog  
park that they kept people from remembering, but the library,  
the radio, hell, the fact that the secret police criminalized  
anything to do with the dog park mean the whole damn city was  
probably under their control. And it all revolved around the dog  
park. Somehow, Carlos decided the only thing he could do was go  
to the dog park, get undeniable proof it existed, maybe then he  
could warn the town.  
***  
He drove part of the way but parked a block before, lest he  
make any noise. He had brought along bolt cutters and a crowbar,  
both of which proved useless as not a single weak point could be  
found in the massively tall wrought iron fence. After walking  
around the perimeter, he eventually came across a black obelisk,  
with hieroglyphs up along the sides, and a large, crescent moon-  
pupil eye on the top. He ran his hands along the symbols carved  
in, his mind flashing back to his nightmare, and he felt the  
obelisk buzzing in response to his touch. Something inside him  
clicked, and he strode confidently through the obelisk, the  
structure allowing him to pass through as he did with the house.  
￼ Carlos came out, not in a park, but in an underground  
cavern, an Egyptian temple towering several yards ahead of him.  
Yes, Egyptian, he remembered now. The language he’d heard, the  
symbols he’d seen, the life he’d had before, his death, the  
memories came in flashes and headaches. Carlos panicked as the  
memories overwhelmed him, collapsing against the wall panting.  
This wasn’t right. Oh Gods this was all wrong. How could he be  
dead, just yesterday he’d been driving out to investigate a  
plane crash, but there'd been a sand storm. No, it couldn't have  
been yesterday, how long had he been dead? He refused to believe  
it, no, it was a trick of the dog park, or temple, or whatever  
it was. He wasn’t dead, he couldn't be. He ran once more, this  
time back through the obelisk, straight to his car.  
His tires screeched as he sped to the edge of town,  
desperate to escape, to prove it was all real. He sped past the  
last housing development and had the town limit sign within his  
sight when they appeared. At least five hooded figures stood  
before him, though now he supposed, he should call them demons.  
They did nothing, so he slammed the accelerator, thinking they  
would move. He screamed and swerved away at the last second, his  
car flipping and rolling down a dune as it spun out.  
***  
￼ Carlos clutched at his bleeding body, his hands  
accomplishing nothing other than getting covered in blood. He  
panted in short breaths, the pain pulsing with his heart and his  
every movement.  
“You again” A familiar voice crooned. “Back so soon, did  
you miss us?” The hooded demon taunted.  
“Back, wretch.” The goddess Sekhmet*** replied, her aggressive voice coming from the middle right figure, her face still hidden by shadow. “He shall be dealt with, but on our terms.”  
“Why?” Carlos managed to croak.  
“Why? Because we rule you. I thought you were supposed to  
be intelligent.” Sekhmet chided.  
“No. Why did you create this town? Why now?” The dying man  
asked.  
“Why not?” The reply came.  
“Times are different now for gods.” Added in Shezmu****, on the right.  
“We need souls.” Anubis***** completed from the center seat.  
“Why here?” Carlos asked, feeling close now, despite  
knowing he wouldn't live to warn anyone.  
“Enough questions!” Boomed Shezmu. “It is time for punishment. I say we bring out Ammit******.”  
“Ammit is dead don’t you remember?” Anubis snapped.  
“Besides, we cannot afford to be picky about souls.”  
“Then we send him back.” Sekhmet conceded begrudgingly.  
“What choice do we have?”  
“None.” Anubis replied. “Do it.”  
The demon returned to Carlos’ side, who was faint now,  
fading in and out of awareness. It began chanting in Egyptian  
and golden symbols glowed to life around Carlos’ body. He no  
longer had the energy to scream, so he accept his fate.  
“Wipe him first though.” Anubis said, before the gods rose  
and exited the chamber.  
And so it was that Carlos the Scientist woke again the next  
morning, in a sweat from a nightmare, all memories of Egyptian,  
death, and gods all but gone.


	2. Epilogue- Explanation

To start with, the nightmare. It isn't a dream so much as repressed memories from every time he found out and was "executed", because yes, that has happened multiple times. The town itself does not exist. In Egyptian Mythology there is this thing called the Duat, which as I understood it is essentially a limbo plane that connects the mortal world to the world of the dead. So the town is in the Duat but also in the real world, hence when houses stop existing, the real world asserts itself in that spot for that time. The reason this is happening actually relates to a novel I'm working on where the various gods of all the cultures of the world are at war, and over time they have weakened, and so have their realms, so the Duat also has weakened, and occasionally fails. Plus, the Duat is not meant to be manipulated like the renegade gods are doing, it fights back against the already weak gods. This also results in all the stuff that happens in Nightvale. Carlos keeps losing his memory and being sent back into the town because the gods cannot afford to release any souls, as they need them to get power again. That should about cover it I think. Tell me if I missed anything.

**Author's Note:**

> * Mewling quim- Roughly translates to whining cunt, with purposeful misogynistic intent.  
> ** Mercury Fulminate- A highly explosive crystalline substance capable of going off with just the pressure of being dropped or jostling a bit too much in a pocket.  
> *** Sekhmet- An Egyptian warrior goddess. The executor of Ra’s will.  
> **** Shezmu- Another Egyptian god. The Demonic god of execution, slaughter, bloodlust, and wine.  
> ***** Anubis- Egyptian god of funerals and death.  
> ****** Ammit- A hybrid creature from Egyptian myth that devoured the souls of the unworthy after judgement.  
> ￼


End file.
